Could Mandatory Caps on Medical Malpractice Damages Harm Consumers?
State board sanctions do not appear to be a crucial tool for identifying negligent or incompetent physicians. Medical malpractice underwriters know substantially more about physicians at any point in time than do state medical boards…Tim Vlazny reports that only 22.6 percent of physicians that CNA reviewed for surplus-lines coverage between 2004 and 2009 had a state board action filed against them at least one time in their career. This suggests the medical malpractice system, including carriers evaluating prior claims, identifies more high-risk physicians than state licensing boards do. Vlazny further reports that only about one third of the state-sanctioned physicians had no malpractice claim on record. Claims histories alone therefore identified two-thirds of state sanctioned physicians, and state medical boards were instrumental in identifying at most 8 percent of physicians applying for surplus-lines coverage from this carrier.
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